


Anon Prompt

by CuratioLethe



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:10:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1660949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuratioLethe/pseuds/CuratioLethe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>anonymous asked, "Martha and Ten accidentally bump into Nine and Rose to one of their trips."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anon Prompt

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. All mistakes are mine.

"Welcome to the planet Spira, Martha! Population 6 million, 75% of its land mass totally submerged in water and the locals are semi-aquatic homo-tetrapods."

The Doctor could practically hear the gears in the medical students head turning, trying to piece together the words to try and give a name to the species. It was game they had sort of accidentally created a while back; they’d land on a planet and he would give her a basic description, (as close as he could get to using human terms that she would recognize as he could,) and she would do her best to try and guess what sort of alien life form inhabited that planet. She was quite good at too. 

"So they’re…fish people?" The look of skeptism on her face as she peered over the railing of the pier they were currently standing on was amusing, but not nearly as much as her expression when he corrected her.

"Careful now, its slippery, and close enough. They’re mermaids… Weeeeell, as close to them as you’re  gonna get at least. They live in both the water and on land, but they have both legs instead of the tail. They do have gils though."

They strode along the pier as Martha admired the city: the center city of Spira, Mordicus, was a circular cluster of land that was surounded by miles of water as far as the eye could see. The city itself consisted of a web of coral-like patheways and bridges overhead that interwove with small shops and buildings and the coral glittered under a blue sky and yellow sun much like Earths.

Children raced past them, barefooted and damp, chasing each other as adults who appeared to be human enough (minus the pale blue skin and gils that protruded from their necks) shuffling around to their own devices.

The Doctor led her over to what appeared to be the cities main focus:  the coral, an opaue  milky-pink rock converged at the center . It was structure that stood straight upwards into the sky as the tallet point of the entire city. At  around fifty feet into the air, the structure branched off into several similar limbs, each tapered off to a point and covered  by a canopy of flowers; and as they both stared upwards, Martha admired  the way the sun caused the coral to shimmer, before realizing what it was. 

"Its a  tree! A huge flower tree!" 

The Doctor grinned in confirmation,  and just as he opened his mouth to speak, a breeze swept over them , drifting upwards to catch on the branches above and causing  a flurry of flower petals to be rustled loose, drifting down around them like a fragrant snow.  Martha ahh’ed, but something about the sight of it triggered something in the Doctors brain, something that stayed just out of reach: He shrugged it off, determined to try and figure it out later and enjoy the trip for now. 

A pathway wound around the base of the trunk and spiraled upwards, intersectioned at various points in the trees height by platfroms and caves that lead into the tree. 

"Come on then! No better way to view the city than from above."

They started on the ramp at their leizure, neither in any hurry to make it to the top as Martha marveled the sight below her from a different perspective the higher they climbed and that something  that had nagged him before prickled uncomfortably at the back of his mind. 

 They passed the first platform and then the second and third, in favor of the one further up and Martha sighed as the water around them glittered and teamed with life. In the distance, a  creature that heavily resembed a dolphin from where they stood coasted the surface before disappearing only to launch itself into the air as a bird swooped down and the fish like creature caught it mid flight, before falling back and disappearing into the water. 

"Well, thats a bit backwards from the way things happen on Earth." Martha mused quietly to herself. 

 ”Most things in the universe are.” He murmured, more to himself as he stared around trying to figure out why the nagging in his brain seemed to have gotten stronger the higher they climbed. Something about the place was incredibly…familar, (which was as it should be, because this was hardly his first visit to this planet, but it was more than that, more …insistnant.)

"Whats that supposed to me?" She turned towards him and lent back against the railing with a mock air of offence. 

"Well, the human race, at least in your time, is so limited in their capacity to empathize with the rest of the universe, with things that are ‘different’. Which is to be expected,  because you lot  haven’t had a chance to get out there and discover  the "so much more"yet, that  you  just go about things in a completely around about way from the rest of the universe. "

"Hey, now. That’s my species you’re on about."

"That’s not to say that you all don’t learn, or have your shining attributes, but you’re a flawed race. Just as every other life form out there is." 

" And what about you, Mister Know-it-all? Whats your Achilles Heel then?" 

"Well, I’m brilliant, of course-" Martha scoffed and rolled her eyes, as he tugged on his ear, looking upwards in thought. "And well, sometimes I’m too brilliant for my own good."

"That doesn’t count…You have to name something that’s a bad quality all of the time."

"Weeell, I suppose…"

A scream from somewhere up high cut between them, startling them both. They both looked up and only to watch as the figure of a woman was backed onto a branch by something unseen from either of their perspective. They were too far down to make out many details about the person, except that she was female and they had begun running upwards to help her when she let out a second cry. Only this time, she cried out a name. 

"D-Doctor!" 

The Doctor suddenly froze, his head jerking upwards and Martha skidded to a halt as well, her head jerking back in his direction.

"Doctor, come-" But her voice died in her throat as she took in his expression. The color had almost completely drained from his face and he had the look of a man who had just seen a ghost. 

And just as quickly as he had frozen, he jolted back into action. He took off in a dead sprint, leaving Martha to scramble after him with only one word in his wake that didn’t exactly make sense in the circumstances, not from what she knew of them. 

"Rose!"

Up and up they ran, Martha struggling to breathe, (something that didn’t seem to be the slightest issue for the Doctor) and she was sure she had never seen him run so fast or so desperately. 

He got there just in time to see a wild catlike beast make a swipe at her with its claw, just in time to see her footing slip and he let out a strangled cry as he  rushed forward and in his frantic frenzy, he sent the animal over the edge. It fell thirty feet with a yowl before meeting the ground below with a sickening crunch. Screams arose from below but they were lost on the Doctor as he grasped for the hand that had managed to catch  on. 

"Please!" She cried out as her fingers began to slip, 

"Martha, help me!" He cried out, grasping Roses arm as she struggled to maintain her grip on the ledge, her eyes shut tightly as she gasped in fear. "Rose, look at me! Look at me!"

Eyes that he had never expected to see again met his own, and something inside of him clicked into place. A sudden flood of memories hit him like a freight train, memories he had hidden from himself. He had been there before, of course, but the last time had been with Rose. In his previous body. And he had met his future incarnation. 

"I’d /never/ let you fall, you hear me? I’ve got you! Martha!"

Martha fell to her knees at his side and took Rose’s other arm and together they heaved her up and over the ledge. The momentum of force they had used caused her to stumble and she fell into the Doctors chest. His arms went around her automatically, and she inhaled raggedly against his chest as she clung to him as well. 

Suddenly, everything was as it should be, everything was exactly right in the universe and a noise tore itself from his throat that he had no control over. His hands flew from her back to her hair, touching her any where he could possibly get his hands if only just to prove to himself that she was real.

Rose clung to him as well and his hearts soared, because the universe had finally granted him a reprieve, had finally shown him a kindness and the dizzying reality left him unable to do much more than whisper her name over and over again. He could stay in this moment forever, freeze time and allow the ages to pass around them; so long as it meant she never left him again. 

But even as these thoughts flew through his brain, and even before she stopped shaking and began to stiffen, the Doctor knew. He knew the moment he tried to credit the universe with any sort of kindness, that  it was anything but. Because the universe was not kind, not to him. It took and took from him until he had nothing left. 

Rose cleared her throat and the sound seemed to be sufficent to cut through the haze that had clouded reality. 

And those memories that had resurfaced, that he had managed to push aside in the urgency and the  blessing of the moment reared their ugly head and he knew. 

His arms fell to his sides and he sat back on his haunches, Rose stared at him with a look that was a cross between awe and trepidition; Nineteen year old Rose, with her hair that had yet to be cut, and eyes that had yet to see all that they would.  

This was not a reprieve from the universe; this was salt on the open wound, a slap in the face. 

"What in the world d’you think you’re doing?" A familar voice with a heavy Northern tilt only confirmed what the Doctor knew. "Rose, come here," 

Rose quickly got to her feet and complied, moving round him  to join  his younger self  and he could do nothing but sit there, suddenly numb. Because she was again ripped away from him, only this time it was his own fault. 

What a stupid man he was. 

"Doctor?" Martha kneeled down beside him and he quickly did the best he could to pull himself together, knowing what needed to come next.

She helped him to stand, and he turned to the couple, the sight of which tore through him in the most painful way. Memories threathened to consume him and it took everything in him not to grab the thing that he wanted most, the thing he needed more than anything and run. 

Just as they always had. 

This wasn’t the first time he had run into a past or future self, but this time seemed to have the most damming consequences. Yet, no matter what face he wore, he could always reconginize himself. And that’s exactly what caused the angry set of his previous features, the tension in his shoulders, the way his  arms clad in leather were crossed as if he were restraining himself  creating a paradox using violence, (and having lived through this from that side of the fence before, could vouch for the theory). 

"I wonder what could possibly make you do something so /stupid/ ."

"Hey, if it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t even be here anymore." Martha injecterjected on his behalf, only to huff in indigination when she hushed.

"This hasn’t anything to do with you, so just stay out of it. You." He redirected his attenion back to himself, "I dunno, and I don’t want to, what made you decide to come here, but you know as well as I do how stupid that was. We need to leave Rose." 

"But-" 

"/Now./"

"Just… wait. Just…one thing." His throat was suddenly dry and he swallowed.

"You’ve done enough by now, don’t you think?"

"It was accident. I blocked the memories, as you’ll do. Except, for this.. You’ll need to remember this."

His younger self looked nothing if not annoyed, but after a few moment sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine, but if we end up with reapers, I’m leaving you to deal with it on you own, got it?” 

He nodded and tucked his hands into pocket. Rose and Martha watched the exchange with more than a little confusion, but they both seemed to understand that interrupting just then wouldn’t be the wisest decisions. He stared into blue eyes, eyes that were so hard with the wounds of war reflected from the heart of the man he used to be. 

How he had changed after his regeneration- how different he was… No. How much different /she/ had made him. 

His eyes flickered over to her briefly before he closed them. Because that was easier. Easier than having her three feet away and being unable to touch her. 

"The Bad Wolf is coming."

He watched as the words startled his younger self,  watched as he gaped, struggling with needing to know more and the fact that he already knew too much. 

In the end, he simply nodded and turned, taking Rose’s hand in his own, leading her further up the tree where he knew their TARDIS to be parked. 

Oh, how he ached. 

~~~~~~~~

"So, that was her, huh? The famous Rose?"

"I really don’t wanna talk about it Martha."

She sat down next to him in the door way of the TARDIS and allowed her feet to dangle above the supernova they were currently hovering over. 

"Alright then, how about that bloke? Right old tosser, I’d reckon. Bit rude as well."

He couldn’t help being amused at her statment, seeing as how he was much more blatantly rude in this life. 

"I suppose." He kept it at that, because explaining it any further would require much more of an explanation than he had the energy for at the moment. 

They sat in silence for a few moments, watching stars and particles of space dust dance around them, before Martha  bumped him gently with her shoulder. He glanced at her and rolled his eyes. 

"You’ve got to talk about it at some point, Doctor. I know it hurts, but it isn’t healthy always keeping those things bottled up. You’re going to explode one day."

He glanced back out at the stars. Perhaps she was right, but today was just not that day. 

"Never gave you an answer, did i?"

"About what?" 

"About my bad quality."

Martha blinked, having forgotten that conversation entirely in the events that had transpired afterwards, but she chose to remain silent, knowing he’d give her an answer regardless, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered bringing it back up. 

"You see," He began, and he swallowed, his eyes suddenly glazing over as he became lost in thought, "Sometimes, something happens in your life, something that gets under your skin and stays there and no matter how much time passes or how many planets you travel to or how hard you try to forget it, you know its pointless. Because some things can’t be forgotten."

He closed his eyes. “Somethings just stay with you for the rest of your life. And I’ve lived such a long life, Martha… So, if I had to pick, I’d have to say that my bad quality is this … I survive.” 


End file.
